I posted a link earlier today on how the DNC was planning on waging a war against Governor Mark Sanford, as he is increasing being seen as a major threat again President Obama in 2012. 

The DNC provided reporters with these talking points;

The reviews are in, and South Carolinians from both parties are rejecting Governor Mark Sanford’s decision to play politics with $700 million in federal job creation and economic recovery funds. On the same day the Washington Post is running a front-page story on the economic crisis in South Carolina, a bipartisan mix of South Carolina leaders are criticizing Gov. Sanford’s decision to put his personal political ambitions ahead of the people of South Carolina by threatening to reject economic recovery funds that will create or retain jobs, improve education, and complete infrastructure projects throughout South Carolina. As one local paper reports, “South Carolina’s Republican-controlled General Assembly is poised to rebuff Sanford and seek the stimulus money on its own.”

“Mark Sanford is putting his personal ambition ahead of the people of South Carolina by cow-towing to the Rush Limbaugh-led, obstructionist wing of the Republican Party,” said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse. “Now is not the time to politicize these practical steps to create jobs in South Carolina and across the country. Governor Sanford should stop playing politics and work with leaders from both parties who want to use the economic recovery funds to help create jobs, fix our schools, reform our health care system, make America energy independent, and lay the foundation for long-term growth in the 21st Century.”

Coincidentally, I just turned on CNN and reporter Jessica Yellin just spouted out this slanderous line to describe ‘opposition’ to Governor Sanford’s education strategy; 

“The Government of South Carolina is not interested in educating black children”. 

Soon after this comment, the report switched to a video feed of Governor Sanford (confirming he was the accused racist).  The CNN report did not allow Governor Sanford to address the ‘racism’ charges directly, and only later did they play a short clip of his response to criticism of his education funding formula.    

Republicans have grown to accept the liberal media bias, but for a major network such as CNN to allow the DNC to storyboard their reports and accuse a major political figure of racism (without evidence) is completely unacceptable.

I encourage you to provide your feedback to CNN, here.  I will post the video if/when it becomes available.

CNN reporter, Jessica Yellin    

Well, look who’s in trouble again. It’s my favorite guy, Sen. David Vitter! This time, he’s under fire for blowing his top at an airport employee.

According to Roll Call, the Louisiana Senator arrived at Dulles airport 20 minutes before his flight was supposed to take off, only to find that his flight had already been close. While I can certainly sympathise with his plight, I can venture to say that most of us would not have responded by jerking open a security door, setting off an alarm, and then reaming the individual who tried to tell him that he wasn’t allowed to do that. Apparently, it got quite heated, with Vitter delivering what Roll Call labeled a “‘do-you-know-who-I-am’ tirade” and the airport worker threatening to call security. It even got better from there:

“Vitter, according to the witness, remained defiant, yelling that the employee could call the police if he wanted to and their supervisors, who, presumably, might be more impressed with his Senator’s pin.”

Vitter is denying the Roll Call account of the incident, but the TSA is investigating – so something happened. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is positively salivating, with communications director Eric Shultz saying, “”Sooner or later, Sen. Vitter should learn how to control himself.”

Listen, I know Vitter probably isn’t the first person to lose his cool at an airport, and not even the first Congressperson to launch into a “‘do-you-know-who-I-am’ tirade” at Dulles. That said, we are talking about David Vitter here, and this doesn’t do much for his efforts to rehabilitate his reputation – nor does it it do anything to shut up those of us who would love to redecorate his office with shiny new nameplates that say “Senator Joseph Cao”.

***We interrupt your scheduled intraparty feuds for this important announcement.***

New York’s 20th District should be ours with the Kirsten Gillenbrand moving to the Senate: An easy pick-up for the GOP given our registration edge in that district. The Candidate: The House Minority Leader. What could go wrong?

Well the latest Sienna poll shows Jim Tedisco up by 4 points at 45-41% with 19 days to go before the March 31st election.

According to jim Geraghty, it’s even worse:

Just in case there wasn’t enough pessimism about that special election for Congress in New York, a well-connected poll watcher confirms the worry I’ve heard from other sources.

“NY-20 is looking worse than some of the public polls show,” this poll-watcher says.”I am hearing that internals are showing the race basically within a point and Tedisco’s negatives are rising dramatically.”

Guys, this is a race we have to win. It will give Republican a great deal of momentum going into the off-year Governor’s elections. If those go well, that’ll build momentum for 2010. If Republicans lose a seat that there’s really no conceive excuse for losing, it really creates a sour tone for the rest of the year.

It doesn’t matter what type of Republican you are, it’s time to get with the program. Huckabee’s endorsed Tedisco, Romney’s endorsed Tedisco, Giuliani’s gone up to campaign for Tedisco. These three men disagree on many issues, but they all know how important it is to win this race.

Patrick Ruffini is holding an online fundraiser for JIm Tedisco and I would urge you, if you have not already given to support Tedisco’s efforts, contribute now! This is a pivotal race and victory is critical. We can’t afford to let this one slip away.

***We now return to your scheduled intraparty feuds already in progress***

Michael Steele’s gaffe on abortion is garnering plenty of reaction. The biggest name to come out on this has been Mike Huckabee who at the HuckPAC blog came out with criticism and concern on Steele’s statement. Steele took a call from Huckabee and Huckabee wrote about the conversation on his blog:

Michael affirms his pro-life commitment, including support for the party platform of a Constitutional amendment to protect life and his conviction that life begins at conception.   The point he sought to make was that words like “choice” and “individual decisions” have been co-opted by the left, when in fact his mother made a choice as an individual—the CHOICE to give birth to him as an unmarried college student.  It would have been easy for her to have made a choice to end his life, but she chose life.

Obviously, this is an issue which is very important to me and to many other conservatives and it was important for me to get this clarified.  I’m grateful that Chairman Steele was willing to set the record straight without hesitation.

Even with Steele’s explanation to Huckabee, the effort seems weak and confusing. It also didn’t re-assure more than a few people in the comments section of Huckabee’s blog. Said one commenter, ” I will be willing to wait and see where this goes; but my confidence at this point is fairly low.”

The statement is problematic. As noted by James Richardson at Red State, this could hurt the party in the pocketbook:

The problem for Steele, then, is not the potential for expulsion from his current post, but rather the extent to which these highly-publicized gaffes will upset the party’s fundraising. His predecessor, Mike Duncan, earned a reputation as a prolific fundraiser; consequently committee members will expect similar results from a chairman whose celebrity easily dwarfs the camera-shy Duncan.

Steele’s comments on abortion, of which I add were the most confusing from the GQ interview, will squarely pit him against social conservative activists and donors. And as such, he’s playing fast and loose with the committee’s large and small dolor donor database. March 20th — the release of FEC fundraising reports — will likely be the first of many bad days in the Steele administration, especially if he intends to keep poking the base in the eye with sharp objects.

By way of offering advice to Chairman Steele, a fellow RNC veteran quips, “He should be like Obama and carry his teleprompters wherever he goes.”

For obvious racial reasons, parallels between President Barack Obama and Steele have been drawn many a time. A more honest depiction, perhaps, would be to that of his loquacious side kick, the wordiest man in Washington – Vice President Joe Biden.

Joe Biden–ouch.  Richardson does note that though the GQ interview was done 4 days before Steele picked a fight with Rush Limbaugh. Maybe he was just in a gaffetastic mood. Maybe we won’t see these gaffes in the future. But no less a blogger than the great Ed Morrissey who (to answer a question I was asked on a previous thread) works for neither Focus on the Family gives his view of Steele based on recent controversies:

However, the problem with Steele isn’t the GQ interview.  It’s the fact that he can’t seem to make up his mind and stick with it.  Steele seems to have environmentally-dependent political views.  When he’s talking with DL Hughley, the Republican Convention looks like a Nazi rally.  When he’s talking on TV, Rush Limbaugh is ugly and incendiary.  When Steele talks with GQ, he’s pro-choice.  And Steele reverses himself with amazing alacrity when speaking in entirely different environments.  He appears to have no convictions and no principles when he makes these gyrations on the national stage, as though he stands for nothing but Michael Steele and access to the media spotlight.

I have seen the man speak with conviction and passion at conservative events and leave everyone mightily impressed, but now we have to wonder whether Steele just tailored the message for the audience, as he appears to have done with Hughley and GQ.  I don’t necessarily buy that, as he has easier ways to get media air time than being in the Republican Party, but it’s hard not to ask the question these days.

One thing is certain: he’s a lot less media savvy than most of us thought.  And since he doesn’t seem to have much skill in organization, we have to ask ourselves why we should support his continued tenure as RNC chair.

Morrissey hits on something here. It was something that some picked up when he wavered on abortion in the 2006 Maryland U.S. Senate race. Perhaps, it’s a “conservative survival skill” in Maryland, to speak in and reinterpret liberal code words in an extreme liberal state, while taking conservative positions. Well, Chairman Steele, I don’t know about Conservatives in Maryland, but those of us in the other 49 States don’t have a copy of your code book. And done at a national level sends waves of confusion and discouragement rather than clarity through the Republican ranks.

This isn’t to say Steele doesn’t have his defenders: John Hawkins at Right Wing News warns us:

Liberals are going to try to destroy Michael Steele because if you’re not a straight, white male, they think they own you. If you are black, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish, female, gay, etc., etc., and a Republican, they’re going to try to personally humiliate and destroy you for being a living, breathing refutation of the idea that women and minorities can only succeed with the help of the Democratic Party.

On the other hand, there’s something very different going on with conservatives. Over the last few years, the Right has been burned again and again by Republican politicians who claim to be conservative and then sell us down the river. Even John McCain, who spent eight years attacking and undermining conservatives on a regular basis, claimed to be a conservative when he ran for President.

Then, along comes Michael Steele. The knock on him was supposed to be that he wasn’t reliably conservative as some of the other candidates. Still, he seemed to get it and managed to take the RNC Chairmanship in a hard fought battle. Then, soon after, he blundered into a conflict with Rush Limbaugh (Plus, the Nazi comments he let pass). That was a doubly serious error on Steele’s part, not just because it was a big mistake, but because it played to type. Here’s the guy who people worried was “too moderate” taking shots at a conservative icon. So, people who weren’t sure about him in the first place made a judgment: this is proof the guy really isn’t a conservative. From there, they started looking for reasons to doubt him.

If you don’t believe that’s true, ask yourself: if Rush Limbaugh, Jim DeMint, Thomas Sowell, Rick Warren, Ann Coulter, etc., had made the exact same comments, would anyone have even raised an eyebrow? I think not.

Think some would have raised an eyebrow, but with someone who was an established conservative, there would be more of an attitude of, “I wonder what they meant by that.” rather than, “Oh my gosh, there we go again.”

There’s little doubt that Democrats want Steele to fail (don’t know if that makes them unpatriotic) and that his color is a part of that. But, the fact is Steele’s been providing them plenty of help and needs to get it in gear. Hawkins makes the point that Steele handled much of the rest of the GQ interview very well. That’s great and also completely irrelevant.

Those who will read the GQ interview amount to the 788,000 readers of Gentlemen’s Quarterly and let’s say half that many Steele Fans and political junkies. How many millions have heard about this latest occurence? This is a huge error and Steele needs to make a course correction in how he’s approaching answering tough issues, because these quotes are going to blow up and he takes over an organization that many conservatives don’t trust.

President Obama’s Department of Justice, in its effort to keep us all safe and secure, is launching an investigation of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for enforcing immigration laws.  I wonder how many other law enforcement officers will be targeted for doing their jobs?

At a time when the President is considering sending the national guard to our border to stop a drug war from spilling over on to American soil, you would think that he would encourage officers like Sheriff Arpaio to strongly enforce our immigration laws, maybe now more than ever.  

Unfortunately, that would require logic that hasn’t been poisoned by the dreams of permanent electoral glory gained through the addition of 20 million new voters by way of a blanket amnesty. 

The Democrats and the media (redundant I know) are targeting RNC Chairman Michael Steele in a way no previous party Chairman has EVER been attacked in the history of our nation.  

This latest attack on his abortion stance is just another in a long line of sad examples. The press and the DNC are obviously in collusion here, working to create as much conflict within the GOP as possible.  There are a number of reasons for this. One, the DNC is in bad financial shape and is starting this cycle in debt, while the RNC has $22 million cash on hand. Two, Chairman Steele is a diverse figure who gives the party a new face, one more appealing to traditional Democratic minority constituencies. 

The bias of these stories are laid out blatantly in this foolish attack on his GQ interview.  In this interview, Chairman Steele advocates the reversal of Roe v. Wade, yet the press is passing it off as if Steele is pro-choice. Here is the full quote you won’t see on NBC, CBS, or CNN:

Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.

You do?
Yeah. Absolutely.

Are you saying you don’t want to overturn Roe v. Wade?
I think Roe v. Wade—as a legal matter, Roe v. Wade was a wrongly decided matter.

Okay, but if you overturn Roe v. Wade, how do women have the choice you just said they should have?
The states should make that choice. That’s what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide.

He is specifically identifying the states’ right to choose, not an individual. So sit down and calm yourself, Mike Huckabee. This is the federalist case against abortion, and the appropriate case to make.  States’ rights is a far more compelling case than ‘it’s God’s child’. The GOP would to stand for the rights of the state to decide these matters. The voters, not the courts, should have the final say.

What makes the whole situation even more absurd is the fact that the Chairman of the DNC, Tim Kaine, is pro-life.  Ask yourself this: How many Democrats who have raised money with pro-choice groups or have been endorsed by them, like Planned Parenthood, have been asked about Chairman Kaine’s opposition to abortion? Have Obama or Pelosi been asked if they agree with Kaine’s belief in restrictions, his support of a ban on partial-birth abortion, in parental consent? 

No, and they won’t, because that’s not part of the plan. The plan is simple; destroy Steele and distract the GOP. Doing so allows for the DNC to regain its footing and get out of debt. People like Katon Dawson, Mike Huckabee, and Tony Perkins are selfishly playing into the hands of the very Democrats that they should be focused on defeating.  

Today Reuters published an article about how many corporations in the energy and raw materials industries have begun moving from the U.S. to Switzerland, representing the first in what could become a sizable exodus of American companies seeking to preserve their global competitiveness:

Yet a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced plans to move to Switzerland — mainly for its appeal as a low-tax corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach of Barack Obama‘s tax-seeking administration.

In a country with scant crude oil production of its own, the virtual energy boom has changed the canton or state of Zug, about 30 minutes’ drive from Zurich, beyond all recognition. Its economy was based on farming until it slashed tax rates to attract commerce after World War Two.

Local authorities say about 13 percent of full-time jobs in Zug canton are in the raw materials sector.

Over the past six months companies including offshore drilling contractors Noble Corp and Transocean, energy-focused engineering group Foster Wheeler and oilfield services company Weatherfield International have all announced plans to shift domicile to Switzerland.

“Switzerland has a stable and developed tax regime and a network of tax treaties with most countries where we operate,” Transocean Chief Executive Bob Long said in a statement in October, when it announced its move. “As a result, the redomestication will improve our ability to maintain a competitive worldwide effective corporate tax rate.”

Swiss cantons are free to set their own tax rates. For example in Zug, corporate tax is about 16 percent but can fall as low as 9.5 percent for companies that do most of their business outside Switzerland. That compares with an average global corporate tax rate of 25.9 percent, according to consultancy KPMG.

“One trend that we see is that particularly Bermuda-based companies are now moving to Switzerland,” said Martin Frey, a partner at law company Baker & McKenzie. “That may only partly be obviously for tax reasons, but also for security reasons and the fact that the Obama administration may go after them.”

Switzerland holds around $2 trillion of estimated global undeclared assets, according to the Boston Consulting Group. Revenue generated from this could be squeezed as a U.S. probe of its biggest bank UBS dilutes banking secrecy.

One of things I most liked about McCain during the campaign was his proposal to cut the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, in line with the average global rate, as cited in the article.  Imagine what the trillions of dollars sitting overseas could do to stimulate the economy if our officials in Washington would just give the capital owners a reason to bring all that money here.  In any case, we could have told Pres. Obama that things like this would happen when he announced stricter oversight of these “tax dodgers”.

Happy birthday to Gov. Romney on his 62nd birthday!

You can send your own B-Day wishes to Mitt at Info@FreeStrongAmerica.com .

So says Dave Williams, the current State Senate President in the Bluegrass State. In an interview yesterday Williams said, “They seem to have some sort of a deal that if Bunning realizes that he can’t win, then he’s going to let Trey Grayson into the race.” These comments came after current Secretary of State Tray Grayson said in an interview with WAVJ radio that “If he were to change his [Sen. Bunning] mind and retire … I would definitely enter the race.” Apparently, President Williams has now acknowledged he was invited to D.C. last week to speak with NRSC representatives (probably orchestrated by Majority “Leader” McConnell).

Williams has been building name recognition throughout the state and wants to be the state’s junior senator. But, right now Bunning continues to stand in his way. Williams would have the support of McConnell while Grayson credits much of his political rise to the leadership of Bunning. This is quite interesting considering how Bunning continues to screw up his own career (see here and here.) This doesn’t even begin to mention the ridiculous comments he made prior to his 2004 re-election.

Grayson has a lot potential and won re-election in 2007 handily while garnering endorsements from all of the major Kentucky newspapers (including the uber-liberal Louisville Courier-Journal).

If Bunning does finally decide to retire the GOP will have a very exciting primary as the McConnell wing of the party (Williams) takes on the non-McConnell wing (Grayson). First, the state has to wait and see what Bunning decides to do. We might have known a lot more had Bunning released the results of that internal poll that lead him to curse at reporters in the first place.

__________________________________________________________________________________

RayinKY maintains a personal blog at Bluegrassliberative.

Increased Number Think Global Warming Is “Exaggerated”

Although a majority of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is either correctly portrayed in the news or underestimated, a record-high 41% now say it is exaggerated. This represents the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject.

In the comments section of various threads, my colleague Alex Knepper sneeringly dismisses those who are incensed by Steele’s bungling of the abortion issue. We need to expand gosh-darnitt, and the cave-dwelling base needs to give Mr. Steele room to do his work, lest the party be relegated to the handful of states where people think Jesus spoke English. Or so the narrative goes. But, my earlier post applies to pundits and politicians. In order to reach out, you must first reach in, and offer some narrative that the members of your set can recognize as their own narrative. You have to tread carefully, aware that a misplaced step could send fissures through an already cracked coalition. To move a friend, you must first be a friend.

And problem isn’t that Steele is attempting to move his friend “Mr. Conservative”, but that Mr. Conservative was never really his friend in the first place. He’s not really speaking of conservatism, from conservatism. It’s no surprise then that Steele gives interviews expressing an explicitly pro-choice position; he probably figures that fudging the abortion issue is the best way to woo GQ’ers. But, you can’t win GQ’ers until you’ve won CPAC’ers, and that requires a deep and abiding understanding of what CPAC’ers want, and a sensitivity to how they see the world; it requires a willingness to profess respectful, if quiet, gospel on the big issues, while trying to make meaningful and targeted gains on the smaller ones. Conservatism will be the very last thing to undergo a revolution.

I’m eager to see Steele reach out to new voters, but first he must reach inward and discover the heart of conservatism; only then can he steady its tremulous beat.

Edited to add: Oh, and by the way, I’ve decided to overcome my phobia about leaving my email address in the public domain. My name’s already out there, so I guess an email can’t hurt. So I’m following Alex’s lead, and leaving my email address at the bottom of each post.

-

Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

“The layman’s constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and what he dislikes is unconstitutional.” – Hugo Black

—

A man can safely assume that his interpretation of the Constitution is incorrect if it so happens that every policy position that he supports just so happens to be constitutionally mandated and every position that he opposes is clearly unconstitutional.

That the courts have been politicized and will not in the near future be restored to their proper constitutional role goes without saying. That we as conservatives should buy into the game as well is wrong by any measure. So perhaps a short reminder is warranted.

Commenter MWS, asserting that abortion is too important an issue to be an issue of states’ rights, attempted to shoot down my rebuke toward his — let’s be honest, here — judicial activism by implying that I surely supported the Lawrence v. Texas ruling striking down sodomy laws, given that I am gay. So hey, aren’t we all judicial activists now?

Actually, no. I do not support the Lawrence ruling — which, I cannot emphasize enough, is not the same as saying that I support sodomy laws. As Justice Antonin Scalia put it at the time: the court wrongly took sides in the culture war. It was not a matter for the judiciary to decide. It simply is not its constitutional role. Whether that’s wrong or not is not the issue at hand: the Constitution doesn’t necessarily stand for Everything That You Think Is Good. If you don’t like it, seek to change it (or, Heaven forbid, work at the legislative level to overturn such laws). But don’t pretend that it says something that it does not.

Because the populace, though, has bought into this all-that-I-like-is-Constitutional nonsense, modern “Constitutional law” is anything but. It has become a parlor game of semantics, unwarranted extrapolations, weird analogies, and politicized word games. It has fallen into the ridiculous “Does Reality Exist?” realm when, quite frankly, interpreting the Constitution was never meant to be all that complicated.

At the heart of it all, it’s a nation-of-laws/nation-of-men divide. Is the judiciary to be a superlegislative branch of sorts, or is it to be an apolitical, disinterested, objective one? Under a proper, originalist understanding of the Constitution, both abortion and sodomy laws are relegated to the states. It’s not a truly debatable matter. That doesn’t mean that such laws as they exist are just — but please, don’t write your own feelings into the Constitution.

UPDATE: Check out this quote from a Politico piece on John Ensign exerting influence over Washington, D.C., which Congress, by mandate of the Constitution, helps to govern:

“It’s wrong; it’s just wrong,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.). “It’s so unfortunate when people like him don’t realize the inequity when people in places like the District … are expected to lay down their lives for this country [in war] and people try to deny them the basic right to vote.”

Added Maryland Democratic Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, another voting rights proponent: “It should be up to the District to determine their own affairs, but it’s not without precedent. Republicans have been doing it for years — but that doesn’t mean I think it’s not … inappropriate.”

Ensign, of course, has the Constitution on his side.

Yes, that would seem to put a kink in the machinery of debate, wouldn’t it? No matter. Whether we should follow the Constitution is just another matter for the daily back-and-forth. The Constitution is just something to bolster your personal opinion.

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Alex Knepper can be contacted at apkkib@aol.com.

The leadership of Michael Steele makes me pine for the days of a leader who was far less likely to run off at the mouth and say something sure to divide and anger the people he’s trying to lead in order to score points with the media interviewer. It makes me miss leadership that was wiser and more careful about offending conservatives.

Yep, it’s official Michael Steele has done the impossible. The past few weeks make me pine for the competence, coherence, and intelligent strategy of the McCain campaign.

I’m not calling for him to be removed. I don’t think we’re to the point that Steele is causing such a problem for the party that it’d be worth the upheaval and embarrassment of removing a Chairman, but his little adventures in Cable and GQ aren’t winning converts to the GOP. If anything, he’s been visibly pandering, which is about the most insulting way to approach people.

Steele was elected to rebuild the party, not make himself a media superstar. More importantly, it’s not his job to rewrite the party platform on abortion or any other issue. It’s not his job to publicly take on Republican leaders in Congress as “greedy mice” for wanting campaign funds from the RNC.

At this point, I’m strangely led to concur with Martha that keeping Mike Duncan as RNC Chairman would have been smarter. And keeping the same Chairman who led the party to epic defeat would be lunacy.

Steele’s chairmanship shouldn’t end. It doesn’t have to fail, but he has to stop dividing our party. He’s got to stop turning himself into a sideshow that alienates the party’s base, and he has to focus on the grueling task of being the chairman, which is an unglamourous job.

Building new majorities is tough slogging which demands dedication and perseverance. Luckily, we have all sorts of folks willing to help usher us out of the Dark Ages, and into a brighter future free of the fascist neo-cons or the greedy fat-cats, or the knuckle-dragging flat-earthers, or the cigar-chomping slobbering fat idiots; a brighter and gentler future. These folks insist that they want to grow the party- through greater inclusiveness and acceptance- and they’re forever writing long screeds pitching the way forward, if only us lowly conservative types have the foresight to accept their wisdom.

Thus, the frequent weighing-in from conservative “modernizers” during the Rush Limbaugh fiasco. Here’s Dreher:

Limbaugh’s widely discussed stem-winder at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee gathering, made clear that the GOP and the conservative movement are stuck on stupid…This brings to mind the ultra-obnoxious evangelists who used to preach on my college campus, pious twerps who measured their righteousness by the heaps of scorn they attracted.

Funny, those ardent knotheads never converted anybody. And you have to wonder who Limbaugh expects to draw to the right with this cartoonish bunkum.

You have to wonder how Dreher expects to draw the right to him (to, you know, perform that reformist magic he’s so keen on) with this cartoonish bunkum.

And Frum:

A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence.

You get the point. I don’t bring up these conservative “modernizers” to dredge up the now thoroughly played out Limbaugh feud, or to attack modernization writ large, but rather to illustrate a point: for bloviators who claim to want to influence the direction of the Republican Party, they seem to have a remarkable knack for saying things that ensure that no one in the Republican Party listens to them. For a crowd that’s obsessed (to distraction) with bringing new guests to the banquet, they’re awfully prone to setting their tickets aflame. In short, most of the Republican modernizers seem oddly disinterested in staying in the good graces of the party they’re trying to modernize. I won’t question, now anyway, if modernization is really what they have in mind. I’ll take them at their word, and chalk up this mysterious failure to target actual Republicans to sheer incompetence. But, I must say, incompetence is by no means an inevitable byproduct of a modernization project. It’s possible to reach out, while reaching in. The NYT’s new hire, another GOP modernizer, has a much better grip on this. Here was his response to the Limbaugh stuff:

But if you accept the parallel with Oprah, then you also need to recognize that if American liberals treated someone like Ms. Winfrey the way the adoring CPAC-goers treated Rush – not just as a great communicator and entertainer, but as an arbiter of what their movement is and ought to be, and what their party should be standing for – they’d look like starstruck fools. And rightly so.

So I’m glad to hear Hewitt say that he thinks of Limbaugh as “communicator, a pundit and an entertainer,” rather than a “leader.” But I wish that more conservatives understood the distinction.

And later:

Just imagine, for a moment, how conservatives would react if four months after the worst defeat liberalism had suffered in a generation, an Olbermann (or a Moyers or a Michael Moore or a Bill Maher or whomever) showed up to deliver the keynote address at a liberal equivalent of CPAC, and during the course of his speech he blasted every Democrat who disagrees with him as a miserable sell-out, suggested that conservatives are fascists and conservatism a psychosis, lectured the crowd on the irrelevance of policy ideas to liberalism’s political prospects, and insisted that the only blueprint liberals need to win elections is the one that Lyndon Johnson used to rout Barry Goldwater. And then further imagine that both before and after this speech, a series of left-of-center politicians ventured criticisms of Olbermann, only to beat a hasty and apologetic retreat as soon as he turned his fire on them. Conservatives would be chortling – and rightly so! Not because liberalism needs to purge or marginalize its Keith Olbermanns, or because impassioned liberal entertainers don’t have a place in left-of-center discourse – but because when your political persuasion faces a leadership vacuum, you don’t want to have it filled by someone who appeals to an impassioned but narrow range of voters, and whose central incentive is to maximize his own ratings.

While Douthat was taken to task by some conservatives, and lumped in with the Dreher’s and Frum’s, it’s clear that his criticism was of a different order. As Jonah Goldberg said:

It seems to me Ross Douthat tried to stay on one side of the line, trying to debate Limbaughism — for want of a better word — without going after Limbaugh personally or in a way that damages the right more than it helps. He may have crossed that line in some peoples’ eyes, but at least he recognizes that this has gotten out of hand.

Douthat sought, and continually seeks, to actually maintain some influence on the right. He understands that a party changes from within; that you’ll never have any success in altering its landscape unless its members recognize you as a fellow traveler. And if the other modernizers in the party are serious about their modernizing, they’ll seek to follow Douthat’s lead. I hope, for their sake, it’s not too late.

Tonight on Harball, Chris Matthews was on the receiving end of what may be the worst beatdown I have ever witnessed on television, courtesy of Ari Fleischer. Fleischer even had Matthews’ own staff laughing at the host audibly on camera. Ironically, some liberal blogs are actually claiming that it was Matthews who made Fleischer look bad, but I don’t really know what they were watching because it wasn’t the interview that I watched.

Watch Fleischer turn Matthews into nothing more than a sorry example of a leftist with nothing left but campaign talking points to spew…

UPDATE: I found a complete video, ironically, from someone who thinks Matthews was “rubbing Ari’s face in it.” Make up your own mind, but in the interview, I thought it was Matthews who ended up looking like a slobbering baffoon.

I guess lefties get all tingly up their leg whenever anyone spews a talking point or something… but Fleischer makes Matthews look like a whiny little child.

Hmm I wonder why people keep comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter??? Oh this is probably a good reason:

The Obama administration is leaning toward making a major diplomatic overture to Iran before the country’s presidential elections in June. This initiative could come in the form of a letter from President Obama to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to two senior European diplomats who have met in recent weeks with key State Department officials crafting a new US policy toward Iran.

The letter would be aimed at initiating talks over the Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s role in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

It would be the first formal communication between an American president and Iran’s leadership since Washington cut diplomatic ties with Tehran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

State Department officials yesterday declined to comment on their plans for changing Iran policy until they complete an ongoing review.

But on Monday, State Department acting spokesman Robert Wood told reporters: “We have offered our hand to the government of Iran, and we hope to be able to engage this government on a whole range of issues. But a lot of it’s going to depend on Iran and its willingness to engage and its willingness to change its behavior in a number of areas where we have concern.”

I guess economists are just a part of the vast Right Wing Conspiracy now. Participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey overwhelmingly gave President Obama and Secretary Geithner an F for their handling of the economy. I guess economists listen to too much Rush Limbaugh and not enough HopeNChange.

Maybe…

The GOP plans to hold a no confidence vote on Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Michael Steele after New York’s 20th congressional district holds its election for the House at the end of the month, according to Political Wire.

Steele is facing increasing criticisms from his own party over his recent statements, less than six weeks into his chairmanship. The first black RNC head, he won the party’s top post as controversies plagued his rivals.

And who’s behind this? Could it be bitter Katon Dawson?:

Katon Dawson, who came in second in the January RNC vote, is said to be quietly organizing a vote and is getting the support of several state party chairmen who want to dump Steele.

But if that were to happen, state leaders would support Steele:

“His election has been overwhelmingly received by the rank-and-file Republicans,” said Colorado GOP chief Dick Wadhams. “They see him as an articulate party leader who can go toe-to-toe with the Democrats, and they don’t share the perception that some in the confines of Washington have.”

Added Rick Beltram, the Spartanburg County GOP chairman in South Carolina: “I don’t think anyone is ready to throw Steele to the wolves.”

Steele’s situation echoes that of Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, presidential candidate and outsider who in 2005 was elected Democratic chairman much to the chagrin of the party establishment. Dean later was vindicated when his 50-state organizational strategy was credited with helping Barack Obama reach the White House.

…

Overall, there’s a sense in states that Steele seems to be exactly the change agent the party needs after eight years of taking their marching orders from Bush and his political guru, Karl Rove, and following the 2006 and 2008 shellackings.

For his part, Steele is undeterred:

In an interview with Cal Thomas, Steele dismissed any call for a resignation. “No!” he shouted. “And shame on [those] who should have the cojones to at least come and talk to me.” And here’s how he characterized his detractors: “The mice who are scurrying about the Hill are upset because they no longer have access to the cheese, so they don’t know what’s going on.”

Give me a break! The guy’s been in this position for all of a month and some are ready to toss him overboard? Methinks this is utter opportunism. Some people in the RNC never believed that Steele was up to the task and are looking for any chance to throw him overboard. Somehow, I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the only public advocates for getting rid of Steele were supporters of Katon Dawson.

Regardless, this is pure noise: nothing will happen to Steele. He’s in it for at least the next cycle.

Props to Fox News for highlighting the obscene hypocrisy of James Carville:

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.”

Carville was joined by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who seemed encouraged by a survey he had just completed that revealed public misgivings about the newly minted president.

“We rush into these focus groups with these doubts that people have about him, and I’m wanting them to turn against him,” Greenberg admitted.

The article then continues:

Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: “Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!”

The press followed Carville’s orders, never reporting his or Greenberg’s desire for Bush to fail. The omission was understandable at first, as reporters were consumed with chronicling the new war on terror. But months and even years later, the mainstream media chose to never resurrect those controversial sentiments, voiced by the Democratic Party’s top strategists, that Bush should fail…

…In 2006, 51 percent of Democrats wanted Bush to fail, according to a FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll.

Come to think of it, I suppose that’s exactly the kind of double-speak we should expect from a Clintonite.

While signing the $410 billion spending bill today in private, a stark contrast from the extravagant ceremonies Obama held when he signed the so-called stimulus and other pieces of legislation, the President offered his two cents:

He also issued a “signing statement” in which he objected to provisions of the bill that he said the Justice Department had advised “raise constitutional concerns.” Among them are provisions that Obama said would “unduly interfere” with his authority in the foreign affairs arena by directing him how to proceed, or not to, in negotiations and discussions with international organizations and foreign governments.

Another provision, Obama said, would limit his discretion to choose who performs specific functions in military missions.

This comes from someone who railed against President Bush’s signing statements that sometimes criticized provisions in legislation that Bush believed would “‘unduly interfere’ with his authority in the foreign affairs arena” and homeland security.

Finally, Jack Hunter of the Charleston City Paper highlights Mark Sanford’s “practical” handling of the stimulus issue:

Unlike Bush, Obama, and the majority of both parties, Mark Sanford is one of the few leaders who has been consistently practical on government spending. Sanford was the only governor who traveled to Capitol Hill last November, not to accept the John McCain, Lindsey Graham, George W. Bush-sponsored stimulus package, but to oppose it.

While GOP Govs. Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin held their hands out, Sanford said before the House Ways and Means Committee, “I’m here to beg of you not to approve or advance the contemplated $150 billion stimulus package … This $150 billion salve may in fact further infect our economy with unnecessary government influence and unintended fiscal consequences.”

In criticizing Obama’s recent stimulus, Sanford stated similar concerns: “The president’s stimulus represents the largest and most invasive economic action in our government’s history.”

Genuine conservatives have long argued that the same penny-pinching practiced by families and businesses that strive to live within budgets should also apply to government. But the notion that Sanford’s dedication to these elementary economic principles has blinded him to practical statesmanship is absurd and ignores the fact that Obama’s New Deal ideology is as integral to his big spending agenda as any alleged statesmanship the Left continues to ascribe to him.

Again, if the economy remains a major concern in 2011 and 2012, Sanford could do some serious damage if he dedicates himself to waging a presidential campaign.

Manhattanville College 2010 New York Gubernatorial Survey

• Rudy Giuliani 50%
• David Paterson 36%

• Andrew Cuomo 51%
• Rudy Giuliani 36%

Favorable / Unfavorable [Net]

• Andrew Cuomo 70% / 13% [+57%]
• Rudy Giuliani 61% / 34% [+27%]
• David Paterson 41% / 46% [-5%]

Survey of 505 registered voters was conducted February 28 – March 5. The margin of error is +/- 4.4 percentage points.

…on this quote by RFK during his 1968 campaign:

We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the Gross National Product. For the Gross National Product includes air pollution, and ambulances to clear our highways from carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. The Gross National Product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missles and nuclear warheads…. It includes… the broadcasting of television programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our children. And if the Gross National Product includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play……It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials… the Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America — except whether we are proud to be Americans.”

So reports the Atlantic:

It’s one step back for the Atlantic, but an order of magnitude forward for the country: my colleagues and I learned today that senior editor Ross Douthat will, in short order, become an opinion columnist for the New York Times.

Ross is late-twenties-year-old public intellectual with the sensibility of a 60-year eminence grise, the range of a Hitchens, the pitch of a conservative AJP Taylor, the conscience of a Neibuhr and the intellectual honesty of his frequent sparring partner, Andrew Sullivan.

I think this is excellent news.  Douthat is far and away my favorite political commentator.  He’s the co-author of the truly excellent “Grand New Party”, and one of the more level-headed writers around.  Politically, he preaches a reflective religious social conservatism- deeply grounded in philosophy- married to a sort of DLC economics geared towards blue-collar voters.  That makes him the sort of anti-Kristol on the right.  I’m not a fan of the Times (for obvious reasons), but I eagerly await Ross’s contributions.  Good luck, Ross!

President Barack Obama recently insulted the armed forces of the United States that he “leads” by stating flatly that we are not winning the war in Afghanistan and “floated” the idea of negotiating with “moderate” elements of the Taliban:

Mr. Obama pointed to the success in peeling Iraqi insurgents away from more hard-core elements of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a strategy that many credit as much as the increase of American forces with turning the war around in the last two years. “There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region,” he said.

This is the first known time that the Commander-in-Chief has used the word success with respect to the war in Iraq, ironically though, only in the context of a prelude to surrender in Afghanistan.

Let us review:

Firstly, we have not been attacked since 9/11. The main purpose of our invasion of Afghanistan was to prevent such attacks. Yet, we are “losing”? Secondly, a major portion of the “hard core” al Qaeda elements in Iraq were trained and harbored under the auspices of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The same Taliban that made Osama bin Laden a free citizen in the terror nation-state they ran before September 11, 2001 and from which the 9/11 attacks were launched. The same Taliban, many of whom have fled to Pakistan and the same that Senator Obama and most elected Democrats in Washington said President Bush had taken his eye off of to fight an unnecessary war in Iraq. Candidate Obama also famously stated that he reserved the right to go after the Taliban in Pakistan.

But now President Obama wants the new “focus” in the “good war” to be compromising with those that carried out the 9/11 attacks rather than bringing them to justice?

Who should be surprised? Not anyone that has been watching the new president recently insult our closest ally that has lost over 300 soldiers fighting with us in the War on Terror and appease enemies like Iran in his first press conference by essentially blaming the United States for their turn to terror 30 years ago.

And as to Pakistan, who the president implied wasn’t a strong enough ally against the Taliban and al Qaeda? They recently destroyed a major Taliban stronghold near the Afghan border and their new democratically elected President, Asif Ali Zardari (pictured above) explicitly rejected compromise with oxymoronic “moderate Taliban”:

Pakistan’s fight against terrorism is relentless. Since the election of a democratic government last year, we have successfully conducted military operations in our Federally Administered Tribal Areas and other parts of the country, capturing or killing high officials of al Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as hundreds of their fighters. In the highly volatile Swat Valley, our strategy has been to enter into talks with traditional local clerics to help restore peace to the area, and return the writ of the state.

We have not and will not negotiate with extremist Taliban and terrorists. The clerics with whom we have engaged are not Taliban. Indeed, in our dialogue we’d made it clear that it is their responsibility to rein in and neutralize Taliban and other insurgents. If they do so and lay down their arms, this initiative will have succeeded for the people of Swat Valley. If not, our security forces will act accordingly.

I wish my country had a president that sent such a strong message to our enemies as does Pakistan.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com.

Tim Pawlenty has taken to saying, in his “modernize the Republican Party” spiel, that Mitch Daniels is the only Republican Governor between him and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a nice line, especially in this new political landscape, where blue-state Republicans are practically an endangered species and it’s easy to see how Pawlenty might use that sort of line, to carve out a niche in the 2012 lineup. After all, Crist and Huntsman may be playing to blue-state moderates, but Pawlenty’s actually won over blue-state moderates; Florida’s still redder than the nation as a whole, and Utah would vote for Rick Santorum in a 48-state Obama landslide. And unlike Romney, the only other credible blue-state conservative, Pawlenty’s managed to maintain the support of his moderate, blue-state, constituents. But, (there’s always a but) Pawlenty has a major difficulty; he’s not quite a Crist moderate, but nor is he a rock-ribbed conservative. The stimulus debate provides a nice illustration of this; he opposed the bill, and spoke poorly of it, but didn’t threaten to reject funds. That may have been a safe position, but it’s not exactly a barn-burner. This sort of response has been common for Pawlenty.

When John King asked him, over a month ago, if Tom Daschle should withdraw his nomination, Pawlenty said something like “I’m not sure Obama knew about Daschle’s tax problems, but if he did, I’d hope he’d of chosen somebody else”. When he outlines his vision of the Republican Party, he’ll say things like “We don’t need to water down or dilute our principles, or become more like Democrats and moderates. We need to modernize our principles, and convince more Democrats and moderates to become Republicans”. Exciting stuff this is not. It rings of a blue-state conservative wandering around in the dark, trying to get his equilibrium in a new environment (national politics). While, it’s not quite true that politicians have to play to their base, when you’re the Republican Governor of a smallish blue-state, and you’ve never raised more than 5 million dollars, you have to be talking to someone. In short, I’m just not sure there’s much of an audience for the soft conservatism Pawlenty is selling.

This sort of message, more than any personality trait, is the source of the “vanilla/boring” reputation Pawlenty has acquired. Pawlenty needs to do at least three things, in my opinion.

1. He needs to ditch the qualifications. Clarifying and qualifying are handy tricks to the blue-state Republican, but they’re a good deal less useful on the national stage. Boldness wins at the national level; Pawlenty’s hero, John McCain, knows this better than anyone. Mac didn’t ride to prominence by saying “Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell should be just a little less inflammatory. Don’t get me wrong, they’re well-meaning people, and I don’t want to end their influence, but…”. Mike Huckabee didn’t gain fame by asking if the GOP could, you know, pay a little more attention to main street, while of course being respectful of business. John Edwards didn’t become a prominent Presidential contender, by insisting that there was one America, only it had some mildly downtrodden folks who needed to be considered. The Presidency is the one job Americans demand be filled by someone bold. The friendly, cautious, blue-state Republican is not bold.

2. He needs to figure out who he wants to speak to, and target this group aggressively. If he’s going to stick with his Sam’s Club Republican base, he should aim his speaking engagements, interviews, etc, towards that constituency. He’s been on the Rachel Maddow show 3 times in as many months. That’s a nice platform if you’re trying to become the Maverick of 2012, but if you’re selling a weird amalgamation between blue-collar and soft traditional Republicanism, Maddow’s moderate/liberal upscale audience is a puzzling fit. If he plans to go with his expanded theme (that the GOP needs to reach out to blue-collar voters, minorities, women, and young people), then he needs to start targeting those groups. Do something wacky: create a blog, twitter, go to a Hispanic political conference, etc.

3. He needs to be specific and internally consistent. It’s hard to get anything meaningful out of a “we don’t need to become more like Democrats, but we need to convince Democrats to become more like us” message. How can we convince Democrats to become more like us, if we’re not shifting on policy? Pawlenty needs to zoom on this question, or take a different tact.

I happen to have opinions on where Pawlenty ought to go in all these areas. It seems obvious to me that there are at least three elements of Pawlenty’s message that genuinely work. 1. The Government isn’t forcing itself to deal with the same realities struggling families are dealing with. 2. Republicans have, for too long, refused to address certain issues like health care, under the assumption that they’re Democratic issues. 3. Republicans are appealing to the same groups of voters, with the same messages they used 30 years ago. We need to broaden our outreach and broaden our message.

What does Pawlenty do with these messages? How does he make them cohere? Well, it seems to me that the first two points could be a lot more populist than Pawlenty’s making them. He could blend them with a Newt Gingrich sort of “Government needs to work” message, and call for “Responsible, Responsive” Government. I.e, Government that behaves like individuals by balancing its budget and searching for value, but actually tries to address the major concerns of its constituents. He could then simply pitch this sort of message to blue-collar voters, young voters, minorities, etc, by running an inventive campaign, which emphasizes his relative youth (bring back the mullet!), and targets these voters where they are. I hope he gets it together, I really do. Successful, conservative, two-term blue state Governors are rare, and they’re more compelling (on paper) than Libertarian South Carolinians or faux moderates from Utah. Make the promise a reality, T-Paw.

Huckabee made in appearance at the American Medical Group Association’s Annual convention in Vegas and he took his health care message there:

As the opening keynote speaker, Institute for Healthcare Improvement President and Chief Executive Officer Donald Berwick said that anyone who claims the U.S. healthcare system is the best in the world is not looking at the facts. But at a luncheon the next day, Mike Huckabee disagreed, and pointed out how the latest medical advances are more likely to originate in this country than anywhere else.

“I would argue we have the best health care on the face of the earth,” Huckabee said, explaining that the U.S. is facing a health crisis brought on by poor diet, smoking and lack of exercise, and the current intervention-based methods of healthcare delivery can’t fix that. He compared the state of the nation’s health to a football game where 22 people in desperate need of rest are being cheered on by 70,000 people in desperate need of exercise.

He noted how, if the U.S. could lower its healthcare bill from 17% of its gross domestic product down to 11%, it would save $800 billion a year. “That’s enough for another bailout,” Huckabee said.

“Giving people unlimited and unfettered access will only accelerate bankruptcy of the system,” Huckabee explained, while noting that deep-fried Twinkies on a stick are sold for $3 at the Arkansas State Fair. “Spending more money on the same system is not reform. As Margaret Thatcher said, ‘At some point, you run out of other people’s money.’ ”

Huckabee wasn’t speaking as a conservative advocate of social Darwinism, but as someone who once weighed more than 300 pounds and was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at age 46 in 2003. He then turned his lifestyle around by losing 110 pounds, running in four marathons and getting healthy enough so that he no longer takes medication.

Huckabee said physicians and patients should be rewarded for better health. If smokers can take smoking breaks, nonsmoking employees should get time to take a walk, he said. Employees who follow unhealthy lifestyles are rewarded by getting sick days off, he said, while healthy workers then have to toil harder to compensate.

Huckabee has been clear that he doesn’t want the government to become “The Sugar Sheriff or the Grease Police” but if we don’t address the lifestyle issues that are driving health care costs in some way, I don’t see how you fix the problem.

UPDATE

A lot of questions in the comments came up to the effect of, “Okay, smart guy, what’s Huckabee going to do about it?” 

Actually, Huckabee addressed the question in his book in the Chapter called, “Quit Treating Snakebites and Start Killing Snakes.” Huckabee acknowledged that government alone could not solve the problem. It requires cultural change in how we view many unhealthy behaviors. You can read my whole Cliff Notes version here where I blogged about the Chapter. Here’s the most important part:

Huckabee has often mused as to why health insurance companies don’t cover preventive measures. In Doing the Right Thing, he explains the reason as told him by Insurance Company Presidents. With people changing jobs so often and changing insurance companies every time they switch jobs, it doesn’t make sense for insurance companies to cover prevention because the benefits of prevention will be reaped by another insurance company. Huckabee says that it’s time to move away from the employer based policy to a consumer-driven one.

Huckabee writes, ” Think about it: we don’t expect our employer to ensure our cars or homes, so why should employers insure our bodies. If we bought the insurance and were likely to keep the same carrier as we transitioned to other employers, the carriers would then have a clear incentive to take extraordinary measures to keep us healthy.”

Well, as it tends to work around here concerning all issues except Mittens, I think Adam’s off-base. Here’s my own, briefer version of how likely I feel everyone is to run.

The alternate title of this piece is “So Many Freakin’ Governors.”

Mitt Romney: 98%. Barring something terrible happening preventing him from running, he’s in. It’s his last chance. Regardless, he’s making the rounds, saying all the right things, and staying relevant. He’s running.

Sarah Palin: 85%. She’s still a hot ticket, but she’s young and will easily win re-election. If she governs competently until 2014, she’ll be able to run in 2016 and won’t have to face an incumbent. It may serve her better to wait. But can she afford to? What if a Republican wins in 2012? She can’t run in 2016 then! And then she’s stuck having to stay relevant for even longer. Hmm…

Mike Huckabee: 70%. He should know he can’t win, but he doesn’t know that so he’ll probably run, anyway. Why will he run? Quite frankly, because he’s got nothing better to do (actually, he does: he should run against Blanche Lincoln. But he won’t) and no one’s going to care about whether he runs in any cycle after 2012.

Mark Sanford: 60%. Like Huckabee, he’s got nothing better to do (he’s term-limited and South Carolina’s got no open Senate seat). He’s making all of the right contacts, raising his national profile, and positioning himself as the capitalist in the race. Unlike Palin and Romney, Sanford unequivocally opposed both the bailout and the stimulus. Hmm… (EDITED ON REQUEST OF ADAM GRAHAM TO NOTE THAT HUCKABEE DID NOT SUPPORT EITHER ONE…WILL TAKE HIS WORD FOR IT.)

Jon Huntsman: 50%. He is what Charlie Crist wants to be: a viable candidate for moderates. He’s raising his national profile and he knows how to and wants to connect with moderates, independents, and young voters. Will he? I think that he just might.

Charlie Crist: 35%. I think that Crist would be better-advised to run for the Senate, but will he? I don’t see how he can win the nomination, and I don’t think he does, either. He and Huntsman would cancel each other out, so once one is in, the other is out.

Gary Johnson: 30%. A saner Ron Paul who held a governorship? Really? I think Mr. Johnson sees a chance to become relevant again.

Tim Pawlenty: 25%. I think he’ll read the tea leaves — correctly — and realize that he can’t win. He does, however, face the Huckabee question: what the heck else is he gonna do?

Bobby Jindal: 20%. Logistics of running are too difficult. I’m still convinced that if he does run, it’s his, but I don’t think he’ll see it that way.

John Thune: 20%. He’s self-absorbed enough to do it, but he has no chance. He, like Jim DeMint, makes a fine senator. Lovely. He belongs in the Senate, then.

David Petraeus: 20%. Will depend upon family issues and whether he can get insiders on board. More likely than is being discussed — trust me.

Newt Gingrich: 12%. I’m pretty sure that he’s just trying to promote American Solutions.

Rudy Giuliani: 5%. If lightning strikes. Keep holding on, Alex. Keep holding on…

Haley Barbour: 1%. No.

Dirk Kempthorne: 1%. No.

Mitch Daniels: 1%. No.

Jim DeMint: 1%. No.

Ron Paul: 1%. No.

Aron Goldman: 0%. Despite the fact that he defeated John McCain in our Race42012 straw poll, Mr. Goldman’s prospects for votes would be limited to himself and his mommy. Better luck in 2032, Aron!

Max has done his Power Rankings the last couple of months. I’ve thought about posting my own rankings, but just couldn’t feel it. Tonight, I realized my problem.

To paraphrase Alan Keyes, “I reject the premise of these rankings.” To me, it’s too soon to say who’s leading. Because to discuss who’s leading you really have to know who’s running.

If I asked you, “Hey, who do you think’s going to win the fight this Thursday Night?” Unless you’re a boxing expert, you’re not going to even be able to offer an opinion without finding out the most important question, “Who’s fighting?”

So, I think that’s the bigger question is, “Who’s running?” So with apologies to Max, I’m going to different set of rankings: Likelihood rankings.

So, let’s call this a quarterly feature. Remember, I’m not saying, “Candidate A is going to win.” I’m saying who I think will actually run and the chance they do based on what we know right now. I’ll take another look every quarter. I’ll use the candidates Max has and come up with a few of my own:

Probable Candidates:

(55% or greater chance they run.)

1) Mike Huckabee-59%

With a top-rated Cable TV show, a growing radio show, a New York Times best-seller, and an expanding PAC, Huckabee is making strong moves, particularly as indicated by the latest CNN poll. While Huckabee has indicated that his decision to run may be impacted by Sarah Palin’s decision, he’s holding his own in the polls, and has strong personal connections in early states like Iowa and South Carolina.

2) Mitt Romney-55%

The most recent, “Mitt won’t run” story is another in a line of several. Romney himself stated in Louisiana that he was unlikely to run again during the 2008 campaign. But, to be fair, 2008 was a tough year and he may not have meant what he said at the end of a grueling process. Romney has the advantage in name recognition, as well as in support from leadership of the Conservative establishment and many moderates. He also certainly has a lot of fans in the conservative press. Whether being perceived by many to be the next in line will help or is a myth is debatable, but Romney will be more experienced and seasoned.

A Romney 2012 bid faces some tough perils including potential rivals like Jon Huntsman and Mark Sanford cutting into his fundraising base from Wall Street, and in Huntsman from the state of Utah where Romney raised more than $5 million. Romney also faces the loss of many of his voters from not only these potential candidates but Sarah Palin. However, Romney is liked by the establishment and you can’t discount that.

Plausible Candidates

(45-55%)

3) Jon Huntsman-49%

Huntsman’s changes on Civil Unions, his stance on the environment, and his pledge not to seek a third term all point towards a run in 2012. Huntsman appears to be the candidate of the McCain coalition, and seems like a sleeper to shake things up and really be the candidate of the Moderate wing of the party. Huntsman’s challenge will be to define himself as separate from Mitt Romney, as an individual candidate and not just as Mormon Candidate #2.

4) Tim Pawlenty-48%

Declining popularity at home may make a third term as Governor of Minnesota dicey and the temptation to make a grab at the brass ring of the Presidency may be too appealing. Pawlenty’s big challenge is finding a big pile of cash to run his campaign with.

5) Sarah Palin-47%

Palin’s media profile has fallen off the map with the Alaska legislature in session. Palin remains a leader in the polls and a formidable front-runner if she runs and runs with vigor. There are question marks by her potential campaign. Will she run for re-election as Governor? Can she run for President while serving as Governor? What will she be able to do once the Alaska legislature gets out of session? There are so many questions here, and at this point, Palin seems slightly more likely to run for re-election which would put a big crimp in a 2012 campaign.

6) Haley Barbour-46%

Barbour will be in his last year in office when the 2012 campaign kicks into gear. However, his statements to the Wall Street Journal that a former lobbyist will never be elected President and his reminder that only once in 1896 has a party taken control of the White House and held it less than one term indicate that he may not be a sure bet for a run in 2012. Still, his fundraising capability can’t be underestimated and he may just be throwing the media off to keep the GOP focus on 2009 and 2010.

7-John Thune-45%

John Thune is the Republican Version of the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance famous for having defeated Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and-and—-he’s made a lot of lists as a possible Presidential Candidate. He seems most likely to fill the role of Congressional vanity candidate filled last time by Duncan Hunter and Sam Brownback. As with Pawlenty, money is a huge issue for Thune.

8-Mark Sanford-45%

Sanford would raise a lot of money. In addition, Club for Growth and its members would help him launch an all-out air. But I really question whether his heart is in a 2012 Presidential run, having indicated in 2006 that his last election. Having met the guy, I really don’t think he’s got fire in the belly, and the only reason he runs is out of concern for all the stupid things we’re doing to our country.

Unlikely Candidates

(25-44%)

9-John Cornyn-36%

If he gets enough winners elected to the Senate, he’ll have a mess of I.O.U.s to collect on for a 2012 bid and he may be willing to consider it.

10-Gary Johnson-35%

Not even sure he runs as a Republican, but if Sanford doesn’t run, there’s a definite opening for Johnson. If Sanford does run, Johnson is still a more pure Libertarian.

11-Charlie Crist-34%

Charlie Crist is mentioned often but chances of Crist running depend on money being there and he’s so far down the pecking order, that he’s going to struggle to raise money. If I had to bet, Crist is probably to generate attention in this cycle so that he’s somewhat known before running in 2016 unencumbered by the Florida Governor’s office.

12. Mitch Daniels-30%

Daniels is a fairly successful two term Governor. But beyond that, his ties to the Bush Administration seem a likely drag and the difficulty of governing and running for President being what it is. Again, the ultimate question with this guy is, “Where’s he going to get the money?” I really don’t see people plopping down $2300 checks for Daniels.

13-Newt Gingrich-25%

Newt says he’ll seriously think about it. Come on, there’s no way he’d really consider this. Is there? Newt has more baggage than some airlines. My best bet is that he’s floating a trial balloon to get discussion of his ideas.

Not Happening Candidates (5-24%)

14-Bobby Jindal-20%

For Bobby Jindal, I think he’s playing the same game as Crist. No way Jindal leaves the Louiana Governorship to run for President, and there’s no way he can wait until after winning re-election to announce, and he also can’t run both campaigns simultaneously. Game. Set. Match. Jindal is either: 1)considering a 2016 bid/2012 VP bid, or 2) actually telling the truth and planning on retiring from politics at 45 to enjoy private life in a reformed Louisiana. A politician who actually means what he says? Nah.

15-Jim DeMint-10%

DeMint is an issues guy and a conservative Senator. His best place for effecting the national debate is in the Senate, and I don’t think he’s got any chances of leaving.

16-Jeb Bush-5%

Too soon.

(Chances are greater of me getting a tongue ring and the Cubs winning the World Series on the same day candidates…1-4%)

17-David Petraeus-3%

The surge worked, but we have no clue what Petraeus thinks on any position on policy. The Iraq War is not World War II in terms of its overall impact.  The demand for somebody with military service has an appeal in the GOP. 2012 will likely mark the first name neither candidate has served since Dewey-FDR in 1944. But this is the consequences of 42 years of an all-volunteer military.

18. Ron Paul-1%

As Dr. Paul said in one of his more recent speeches, “When 900 years you reach, look as good you will not.” Okay, wrong old guy. Seriously, Ron Paul supporters face a conundrum. Unless they want to become known as a movement that follows in the steps of Lyndon LaRouche supporters in backing the same old guy over and over again, and being increasingly marginalized each electing. They need a new leader for the next generation. Problem is that there’s no one I can think of who can hold the eclectic Paul supporters that include gun owners, potheads, anti-war activists, and homeschoolers together.

To answer this question, you first have to know why they lost in 2008 (and 2006).  The answer isn’t exactly rocket science: failure.  Failure to actually be what they promised they were when they won.  Failure to articulate and actually defend their ideas.  Failure to maintain credibility with the electorate on the issues that brought them to power.  Were it not for Pres Bush’s strong show of leadership and successes against terrorists, his failures on almost every other level would have brought 2008 to us in 2004.

The next thing, once you identify the problem. is to stop doing what has gotten you in trouble.  That means stop the whining, the excuses and the denial.  No more circular firing squad.  Republicans didn’t lose because of Gov Palin.  They didn’t even lose because of Sen McCain (though he represents part of the problem, but only part).  No, the GOP lost 2008 because they were given warning to shape up in 2006 and didn’t heed it.  It was business as usual when they came to power, when they were elected to end the common practice.

Finally, you look at what worked in the past, determine what still works from it, and START DOING IT!  The last big success was the Contract With America.  Has the US fundamentally rejected the premise behind it?  Have they decided the goals aren’t worthy anymore?

The answer is likely no, but how would anyone really know?  Republicans abandoned it long ago when they got hold of the reigns in DC.  I saw no attempts to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment or Term Limits Amendment after Republicans won everything in 2000.  The one rather pathetic attempt to reign in Social Security was never even seriously debated on the floor of the House.  No, we saw the leadership go in exactly the opposite direction of what was promised in 1994, so my only amazement is that it’s taken this long for the voters to start purging DC.

You see, the fundamental problem isn’t of ideas.  We know what ideas sell to the public (both by winning when we promise them and losing when we lose credibility on them).  Talk of ditching the platform ignores the real problem: credibility.  The GOP doesn’t win by just mouthing platitudes anymore because they’ve demonstrated 6 years of irresponsibility on the issues.  You have to start “walking the walk” when you start showing you’re all talk.

This may seem to scream “ideological purity,” but only if you assume that the three legs of the stool are equally important in all areas.  They aren’t.  Every region has a different focus, and they have their own stools (some with more than three legs, some with less).  Ignoring this reality is an almost certain way to get shut out of the region (Hello Northeast!).  Refocus your candidates on what the region wants, and use their vote for leadership that WILL represent the issues you want.  There are conservative Democrats in Congress who continue to vote Spkr Pelosi in, so their conservatism is in no way an impediment to a liberal agenda, as we’ve already seen.

In short, if you want to have ANY chance of a conservative (whatever that means to you) agenda passed, focus on getting the right messengers for each region who support more conservative goals than the Democrat leadership does, and we just might stand a chance of implementing it in 2-4 years.

Frank Schaeffer embarrasses himself again (he was an evangelical in case you missed his reminders every other sentence) with one of the more hate-filled rants against the GOP that I’ve seen.  

“the Republican Party has become the party of obstruction at just the time when all Americans should be pulling together for the good of our country. Instead, Republicans are today’s fifth column sabotaging American renewal.”

(more…)

In the midst of a quite interesting post on The Atlantic, the author distracted me with some questionable comparisons. Writes Reihan Salam:

Yet there are indications that Romney intends to sit out the 2012 presidential race. Right now, Romney is working on a wide-ranging book – not a conventional campaign memoir – that traces the rise and fall of various empires throughout history, with the intention of divining lessons for America’s future. Romney could be positioning himself as a kind of Churchill figure, a wise elder statesman who will wait for the Obama era to end before he makes another bid for the presidency.

First of all, on the substance of the post, a Romney decision to forgo 2012 would be a huge gamble. He would be betting on: 1) Obama winning re-election, 2) continued good health for him and his wife to age 69, 3) if Obama does lose, he would be betting against a strong contender for the GOP leadership emerging as next in line. On the other hand, running is 2012 is a gamble that Obama will be beatable, plus he’ll probably be putting a larger share of his net wealth on the line.

That said, I’d be impressed if Romney did produce a substantive volume on the subject that really offered some genuine insight. If it comes out, I’d probably be willing to give it the “Do the Right Thing” treatment and seriously consider what Romney has to offer. No, I wouldn’t be changing my allegiances, but I’d probably be less hard on the guy if I saw some real deep conviction, and I’d be more comfortable supporting him were he the GOP nominee.

However, Mitt Romney as Winston Churchill? On what basis? I know some people will think me terribly cruel for suggesting that Mitt Romney hasn’t even come within a country mile of being in the same class as Churchill. Churchhill was a great Statesman who literally saved the world from Hitler and kept England alive, one of the greatest men of the last millennium. To boot, Churchill was a great writer of luminous volumes on history and politics. Saving the Utah olympics and writing one book (not yet written) on history and the rise and fall on nations doesn’t earn a comparison to Sir Winston. If anything, this is more absurd than comparing Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln on Inauguration Day.

Of course, the weird comparisons didn’t stop. Later in the piece, we get this:

And by forcefully opposing the stimulus package, on television and op-ed pages, Sanford has raised his national profile considerably. Like Bill Clinton, another wonky Southern governor, Sanford might wind up as a come-from-behind nominee.

I’m not sure Governor Sanford would be flattered by the comparison. But to compare Clinton and Sanford seems way off base. They are stylistically much different. If there’s a President, Sanford’s comparable to, it’d seem to be Calvin Coolidge, not Clinton. The charisma gap between the two is off the chart that to make the comparison belittles the point.

I hope this doesn’t generate a nasty response from The Atlantic like a comparison to the Yellow Journalists of the early 20th Century…